let's bring in tim and dan greenhouse. dan, i guess you can do a victory lap on this. maybe it is a period victory. from day one you have said we are going to go over that cliff. >> this is certainly not a victory lap we wanted to take, but i like to say that our analysis was rooted in what i would call reality. and reality has played out sort of basically as we foresaw it. the problem now, of course, is the conversation turns to not whether or not you're going over the cliff, it appears that we are, but how long are we off of the cliff. that's where the real economic and stock market damage may arise. >> how bad do you think that reality is going to be, dan? >> that's a lot harder. i think absent a market shock to spur policy makers into action, it's hard to see where the urgency comes from. to the extent that the white house and treasury can delay federal withholding tables, the average taxpayer is not going to see anything meaningfully different in their paycheck other than a 2% payroll tax. there isn't going to be an immediate hit that would lead to the types of ca